Russian scientist Bekhterev. Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev brain phenomena
Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev (1857 - 1927) - an outstanding Russian neuropathologist, psychiatrist and psychologist, morphologist and physiologist of the nervous system.
V. M. Bekhterev was born in with. Sorali of the Vyatka province, in the family of a collegiate secretary. At the age of 16, after graduating from high school, he entered the Medical and Surgical Academy, later renamed the Military Medical Academy. Due to severe overwork in preparation for the entrance exams and nervous stress associated with passing the exams, in September he went to the clinic of nervous diseases of Professor N. N. Sikorsky for treatment. The acquaintance and conversations with the professor made such a big impression on the young man that it determined his choice of specialization and active position in mastering his future profession.
An incentive to self-realization of the creative potential of Vladimir Bekhterev was the opportunity, starting from the third year, to actively engage in research work.
In 1878, after graduating from the Academy, he was left at the Department of Nervous Diseases with Professor I. P. Merzheevsky to prepare for a professorship.
The following fact testifies to the active self-realization of the creative potential of V. M. Bekhterev. At the age of 24, he successfully defended his thesis for the degree of Doctor of Medicine on the topic "Experience in the clinical study of body temperature in certain forms of mental illness."
His scientific work was greatly influenced by the work of I. M. Sechenov “Reflexes of the brain”.
The physiological works of V. M. Bekhterev, which are of particular importance, are devoted to elucidating the role of various parts of the nervous system in the activity of organs and systems of higher animals and humans. Beginning in 1883, he carefully studied issues related to stimulation of various parts of the nervous system, especially its higher sections. In particular, the physiological studies of V. M. Bekhterev (together with N. A. Mislavsky) are of great importance, which showed that in the diencephalon (thalamic region) there are centers that control the activity of the heart, blood vessels, gastrointestinal tract, bladder , eyes and other organs and systems. Based on these data, V. M. Bekhterev argued that in this section of the central nervous system there are higher autonomic (in particular, sympathetic) centers. Thus, the doctrine that higher sympathetic centers are located in the thalamic region of the brain, put forward in 1909-1912. Austrian neurologists Karplus and Kreidl, was substantiated long before them and developed in detail by V. M. Bekhterev. In particular, he showed the importance of the thalamic nerve centers in the emergence of emotions.
During a business trip abroad, undertaken to familiarize himself with foreign achievements in the field of psychiatry and psychology, V. M. Bekhterev received a notice that he had been elected an ordinary professor at the Department of Psychiatry at Kazan University. This happened in 1885, when he was 28 years old. Here, his creative potential as an organizer of science was fully revealed. V.M. Bekhterev became the founder of the first Russian journal on neurology - "Neurological Bulletin" and the first Russian Kazan Society of Neurologists and Psychiatrists. In 1895, in Kazan, he created an experimental psychological laboratory. In 1888 he published the monograph "Consciousness and Its Limits". Here, in Kazan, his research in the field of morphology and physiology of the nervous system unfolded in full measure.
The works of V. M. Bekhterev also covered key issues of psychology, clinical neuropathology and psychiatry. The morphological works of V. M. Bekhterev are devoted to the structure of all parts of the central nervous system: spinal, medulla oblongata, diencephalon, cerebral hemispheres. He significantly expanded information about the pathways and the structure of the nerve centers; first described a number of bundles (conducting pathways) and cell formations (nuclei) unknown before him. Thus, a cell cluster was described, located outside the angle of the fourth ventricle, which was called the Bekhterev's nucleus.
Bekhterev summarized the results of his numerous studies in the fundamental work "The pathways of the spinal cord and brain" (1893). The second two-volume edition was published when he was already working in St. Petersburg (1896 - 1898).
At the age of 37, V. M. Bekhterev became a professor at the Military Medical Academy, and in 1897, a professor at the Women's Medical Institute. Here he created the second (after Kazan) psychological laboratory. Investigating the influence of the cerebral cortex on the activity of various organs and functional systems, V. M. Bekhterev showed that the organs of blood circulation, digestion, respiration, urination, etc. are represented in the cerebral cortex by the corresponding centers. He also established the localization of other centers in the cerebral cortex.
In 1895, V. M. Bekhterev proved that stimulation of certain centers of the brain leads to simultaneous inhibition of the corresponding antagonistic centers. This principle was essential in the activity of the nervous system.
V. M. Bekhterev summarized the results of his twenty years of research in the field of the physiology of the nervous system in the fundamental work “Fundamentals of the Teaching about the Functions of the Brain”, published in seven issues (1903 - 1907).
Clinical works of V. M. Bekhterev are devoted to various issues of neuropathology and psychiatry. He was the first to single out a number of characteristics of reflexes and symptoms that are important for the diagnosis of nervous diseases. In addition, he was the first to raise the question of the need to study bone reflexes. V. M. Bekhterev described independent forms of diseases that were not previously identified by neuropathology, for example, stiffness of the spine, called "Bekhterev's disease."
More than 150 of his published papers are devoted to clinical research; some of them were reflected in the monographs "Nervous Diseases in Individual Observations" (Issue 1 - 2, 1894 - 1899) and "General Diagnosis of Diseases of the Nervous System" (parts 1 - 2, 1911 - 1915).
In works on psychiatry, V. M. Bekhterev considered disorders of mental processes in conjunction with impaired bodily functions. He spoke out against the restraint of mental patients, widely used methods of occupational therapy, physical education, hydrotherapy, etc., proposed his own methods of treating a number of diseases (in particular, the treatment of alcoholism with hypnosis). A special medicine, which has a wide therapeutic application in the clinic of nervous diseases, is known as Bekhterevskaya.
In the psychological laboratory at the Military Medical Academy, a large number of experimental studies of various types of sensitivity (skin, pain, visual, auditory, kinesthetic, vibrational) were carried out. Valuable devices were designed for these studies: trichoesthesiometer, bolemer, baroesthesiometer, myoesthesiometer, axtometer, seismometer, etc. The materials were published in a special journal "Review of Psychiatry, Neurology and Experimental Psychology", which was founded by V. M. Bekhterev in 1896 .
Being engaged in practical treatment of children and adults, V. M. Bekhterev summarized his observations on the characteristics of the psyche of adults and the causes of their illnesses. In these generalizations, in essence, the foundations of modern acmeology are laid.
Contemporaries in Russia and abroad spoke of V. M. Bekhterev as a scientist who knew more and better than others about the structure and functions of the brain. Thanks to his work, it was established that the brain is an organ of the psyche. In this regard, all reasoning about mental phenomena without connection with the brain, the function of which they are, became fruitless mysticism. Anatomical and physiological studies of the brain were an important condition for the transfer of speculative psychology to the natural sciences.
V. M. Bekhterev rejected the methods and theories of the prevailing subjective psychology and put forward the theory of studying objectively observed reactions of the body instead of the internal content of mental processes. He advocated an objective psychology (1907), calling it the "science of behavior." At one time this had a positive significance in the struggle against idealism in psychology.
Evidence of the exceptional organizational talent of V. M. Bekhterev is the creation by him in 1908 of the Psycho-Neurological Institute, built on donations from the royal lands specially allocated for these purposes. Money had to be received, and construction had to be organized. And V.M. Bekhterev managed to do all this.
The uniqueness of this scientific and educational complex was that it housed a university that accepted students regardless of class origin, and research institutions. On its basis, a whole network of scientific, clinical and research institutes was created, including the first Pedagogical Institute in Russia. This allowed V. M. Bekhterev to connect theoretical and practical research in the field of both psychiatry and neurology, and psychology.
The teachers of the Psychoneurological Institute included such leading scientists as M. M. Kovalevsky, N. E. Vvedensky, V. L. Komarov. His student was subsequently the most famous sociologist of the 20th century. Pitirim Sorokin.
A huge range of objects of experimental research - from newborns to the elderly, from the deep structures of the brain to human behavior in different social environments - allowed V. M. Bekhterev to make a generalization regarding the personality structure of a mature person and human immortality.
After analyzing various definitions of personality given by psychologists of that time, V. M. Bekhterev established that not only and not so much the synthesis of memory, character, mind, emotions, abilities and other facets create a personality. The main thing is its direction, aspiration and focus, i.е. that organizing core around which all the other features of a person gather in a unique ensemble.
At the end of February 1916, on the anniversary of the opening of courses at the Psycho-Neurological Institute, V. M. Bekhterev delivered a speech on the immortality of the human personality and man in general.
In 1918, V. M. Bekhterev became the founder of a new research institution - the Institute for the Study of the Brain and Mental Activity. He considered reflexology as an independent field of knowledge. An integral part of reflexology is the teaching of V. M. Bekhterev about “combination” reflexes acquired by an animal and a person in individual life as a result of a coincidence, “combination” of various phenomena of the external world with certain innate reactions of the body. Together with M. V. Lange and V. M. Myasishchev, V. M. Bekhterev conducted his experiments in groups of students of the Medical, Pedological and Psychoneurological Institutes. In the experiments, the indicators of each student were first determined (they were recorded on one sheet); the results were then discussed and voted on. The subjects were asked to make additions and changes to their previous indicators (they were recorded on another sheet).
As a result of research, V. M. Bekhterev found that the team increases the amount of knowledge of its members, corrects their mistakes, softens the attitude towards the act, and gives general shifts in the formulated indicators. Gender, age, educational and congenital differences were revealed in relation to shifts in mental processes in conditions of collective activity.
The results of experimental socio-psychological studies were summarized by V. M. Bekhterev in his works: “Consciousness and its boundaries” (Kazan, 1888), “On the localization of conscious activity in animals and humans” (St. Petersburg, 1896), "Neuropathological and psychiatric observations" (St. Petersburg, 1900), "Psyche and life" (St. Petersburg, 1904), "Fundamentals of the doctrine of brain functions", vol. 1 - 7 (St. Petersburg, 1903 - 1907), "Hypnosis, suggestion and psychotherapy" (St. Petersburg, 1911), "Collective reflexology (Petrograd, 1921)," The brain and its activity "(M. ; L., 1928).
V. M. Bekhterev is the founder of a holistic approach to the study of man, which has become the methodological principle of modern acmeology.
After the mysterious death of V. M. Bekhterev in 1927, when he was healthy, cheerful, energetic, full of new ideas and projects, criticism of his scientific heritage began, its consistent opposition to I. P. Pavlov, and his merits were hushed up. His own psychological work was especially sharply criticized.
In 1948, in connection with the struggle against genetics, the Institute for the Study of the Brain and Mental Activity was closed. Under these conditions, the preservation and development of the psychological direction of research, laid down by V. M. Bekhterev, demanded from his followers great courage, purposefulness and the manifestation of organizational talent in the new conditions. One of the talented successors of the ideas of V. M. Bekhterev, the founder of the Leningrad school of psychologists, was B. G. Ananiev.
Control questions and tasks
1. What conditions affect the manifestation of creativity?
2. How do you understand the meaning of the concepts "microacme" and "macroacme"?
3. What factor played a decisive role in the early self-determination of N. I. Pirogov?
4. At what age did he have meaningful acme-target programs and how were they implemented in practice?
5. Tell us about the diverse acme-targeted programs of N. I. Pirogov. What life credo they were united by?
6. What is your attitude to certain thoughts of N. I. Pirogov expressed in the article “Questions of Life”?
7. What are the main directions for the realization of the creative potential of P. F. Lesgaft.
8. The development of what theories by P. F. Lesgaft served as the basis for the scientific substantiation of physical education?
9. What works by P. F. Lesgaft do you know?
10. Tell us in what directions V. M. Bekhterev's versatile scientific interests manifested themselves.
11. How did the new theories and concepts of V. M. Bekhterev develop in the organization of creative scientific teams?
12. Describe the main peaks of creativity V. M. Bekhterev.
1.Bekhterev V. M. Psyche and life. - St. Petersburg, 1904.
2. Huberman I. Bekhterev: pages of life. - M., 1977.
3. Krasnovsky A. A. Pedagogical ideas of N. I. Pirogov. - M., 1949.
4. Konstantinov N. A., Medynsky E. N., Shabaeva M. F. History of Pedagogy. - M., 1982.
5. Pirogov N.I. Selected pedagogical works. - M, 1985.
6. Teachings of P. F. Lesgaft about physical education and his pedagogical activity // Stolbov V. V. History of physical culture: Textbook for ped. in-comrade. - M., 1989.
Russian and Soviet psychiatrist, neuropathologist, physiologist, psychologist, organizer of science
Born in the family of a bailiff. He studied at the Vyatka Gymnasium (1867-1873), then at the St. Petersburg Medical and Surgical Academy (1873-1878), where he became interested in the problems of psychiatry and neuropathology. In the spring of 1877 he took part in hostilities during the Russian-Turkish war.
After graduating from the Academy, he would be left at the Department of Psychiatry with Professor I.P. Merzheevsky, and worked at his clinic. Full member of the St. Petersburg Society of Psychiatrists (1879), Privatdozent of the Medico-Surgical Academy (1881). In 1884 he was sent abroad to continue his studies, trained in clinics and universities in Germany, Austria, France - with E. Dubois-Reymond (Berlin), W. Wundt and P. Flexig (Leipzig), J.-M. Charcot (Paris). Then he received an offer to take a vacant chair of psychiatry at Kazan University. Extraordinary Professor of the Department of Mental Diseases (1884), Head of the Department of Psychiatry (1885) at Kazan University. At the same time, he worked as a consultant in the first in Russia District Psychoneurological Clinic on Arsky Pole, where he organized the world's first psychophysiological research laboratory; obtained government funding for the clinic. He founded the Kazan Society of Neurologists and Psychiatrists, organized narcological assistance to the population, developed and implemented the method of collective hypnotherapy.
In 1893 he moved to St. Petersburg. He headed the department of mental and nervous diseases of the St. Petersburg Military Medical Academy (1893-1913, in 1906-1906 - head of the academy), where he organized one of the world's first neurosurgical departments. At the same time he taught at the Women's Medical Institute (since 1897). Member of the Medical Council of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (1894), Military Medical Academic Council under the Minister of War (1895). Established the journal Neurological Bulletin (1893, until 1918 editor), organized the Society of Psychoneurologists and the Society for Normal and Experimental Psychology and the Scientific Organization of Labor. He edited the journals "Review of Psychiatry, Neurology and Experimental Psychology", "Issues of the Study and Education of Personality", "Issues of the Study of Labor", etc. Chairman of the Russian Society of Normal and Pathological Psychology (1900). Since the early 1900s published the world's first 7-volume encyclopedia of the brain "Fundamentals of the Doctrine of the Functions of the Brain".
In 1908-1913, he headed the St. Petersburg Psychoneurological Institute founded by him with public funds with pedagogical, legal and medical faculties (in 1916 the faculties were transformed into the private Petrograd University). During the First World War, the institute operated on the wounded and provided assistance to people who became mentally ill at the front. Director of the Institute for the Study of the Brain and Mental Activity, which he created (1918-1927).
Honored Scientist of the RSFSR (1927). He was buried at the Literary bridges of the Volkovskoye cemetery, Bekhterev's brain is kept at the Institute for the Study of the Brain and Psychic Activity.
Founder of domestic experimental psychology, author of a large number of works on various problems of psychiatry, neuropathology, and brain functions. Investigating preparations based on brain slices, he discovered the nuclei and pathways, created the doctrine of the pathways of the spinal cord and the functional anatomy of the brain, established the anatomical and physiological basis of balance and spatial orientation, discovered centers of movement and secretion of internal organs in the cerebral cortex, etc.
He described a number of physiological and pathological reflexes, disorders and syndromes, some diseases and developed methods for their treatment (“Postencephalitic symptoms of Bechterev”, “Psychotherapeutic triad of Bechterew”, “Phobic symptoms of Bechterew”, “Bekhterev's disease” (ankylosing spondylitis), etc.) , created a number of drugs.
Developed objective methods for studying the neuropsychic development of children. He repeatedly criticized psychoanalysis, at the same time he contributed to the theoretical, experimental and psychotherapeutic work on psychoanalysis, which was carried out at the Institute for the Study of the Brain and Mental Activity. He spoke out against the theory and methods of the prevailing subjective psychology and sought to build a natural-science psychological doctrine based on objective research methods. He called his system of psychological views objective psychology (since 1904), and then - psychoreflexology (since 1910) and reflexology (since 1917); understood it as a special science, different from both physiology and psychology, and designed to replace the latter.
He developed and studied the relationship between nervous and mental diseases, psychopathy and circular psychosis, the clinic and pathogenesis of hallucinations, described a number of forms of obsessive states, various manifestations of mental automatism. For the treatment of neuropsychiatric diseases, he introduced combination-reflex therapy for neuroses and alcoholism, psychotherapy by the method of distraction, and collective psychotherapy.
One of the main organizers of the All-Russian congresses on pedagogical psychology and experimental pedagogy, the founder of a number of scientific and pedagogical institutions in St. Petersburg. The ideas developed by him K.D. Ushinsky, P.F. Lesgaft and other domestic teachers are based on an experimental study of the reflex activity of a child, mainly at an early age (up to 3-4 years). He emphasized the need to educate a person from early childhood (education of "social heroism", labor education, sex education, etc.), understanding education as the creation of "habits in the field of physical, moral and mental". He argued that only a harmonious combination of physical and mental development ensures the improvement of the individual. Speaking against formal education, he saw the task of mental education in developing in children a love of knowledge and independence of thought. The methods of education included persuasion, example, encouragement and punishment (not corporal), game and suggestion.
Major writings
Objective psychology. Issue. 1-3. SPb., 1907-1910. (Reissue: M., 1991).
General diagnosis of diseases of the nervous system. Ch. 1-2. SPb., 1911-1915.
On social and labor education. Pg., 1917.
Collective reflexology. Pg., 1921. (Reprint: in the book "Selected Works in Social Psychology". M., 1994).
General foundations of human reflexology. M.; Pg., 1923. (4th ed.: M; L., 1928).
Pathways of the spinal cord and brain. Part 1. M.; L., 1926.
Selected works (articles and reports). M., 1954.
Brain: structure, function, pathology, psyche. Fav. works. T. 2. M., 1994.
Selected works on the psychology of personality. In 2 vols. St. Petersburg, 1999.
Literature
◦ Collection dedicated to Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of his professorship. L., 1926.
◦ Osipov V.P. Bekhterev. M., 1947.
◦ Prosetsky V. A. V. M. Bekhterev as a psychologist and teacher. Scientific notes of the Yelets state. ped. in-ta. 1957. Issue. 3.
◦ Grashchenkov N.I. The role of V.M. Bekhterev in the development of domestic neurology. M., 1959.
◦ Dmitriev V. D. An outstanding Russian scientist V. M. Bekhterev. Cheboksary, 1960.
◦ Munipov V. M. V. M. Bekhterev and his place in the history of Russian pedagogy and pedagogical psychology. Dis. … cand. ped. Sciences. M., 1968.
◦ Batalov A. A. Philosophical views of V. M. Bekhterev and the place in them of the problem of personality. Dis. … cand. philosophy Sciences. Sverdlovsk, 1969.
◦ Baldysh G. M. Bekhterev in St. Petersburg - Leningrad. L., 1979.
◦ Nikiforov A.S. Bekhterev. M., 1986.
◦ Kuznetsov Yu. M. Pathographic aspects of the formation of personality and scientific outlook V. M. Bekhtereva. Dis. … cand. honey. Sciences. SPb., 1995.
◦ Sitdikova G. F., Marinovich R. A., Kostyushko V. V. Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev. Kazan, 2003.
◦ Neznanov N. G. and others. School of V. M. Bekhterev: from psychoneurology to the biopsychosocial paradigm. SPb., 2007.
◦ Nikiforov A. S. and others. V. M. Bekhterev. Life path and scientific activity. M., 2007.
◦ Mikhashina A. S. Contribution of V.M. Bekhterev in the development of the domestic theory of education in the first third of the 20th century. // New in psychological and pedagogical research. 2011. No. 4.
◦ Komissarov A. G. From the kind of heroes: Prince. about the great growth. scientist, acad. Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev. Naberezhnye Chelny, 2011.
Bibliography
▫ Khizhnyakov V.V. Academician V. M. Bekhterev (1857-1927). Bibliography pointer. M., 1946.
▫ Systematic index of works and speeches of academician V. M. Bekhterev, printed in Russian / comp. O. B. Kazanskaya, T. Ya. Khvilivitsky // Bekhterev V. M. Fav. works (articles and reports). M., 1954. S. 471-523.
▫ Isaev P. O. Literature about the life and work of V. M. Bekhterev. To the centenary of the birth. M., .
▫ List of the main works of V. M. Bekhterev, literature about him // Bekhterev V. M. Brain: structure, function, pathology, psyche. Fav. works. T. 2. M., 1994. S. 796-798.
Archives
≡ Personal fund of V. M. Bekhterev. TsGIA SPb, f. 2265, 1368 units hr., 1890-1927.
≡ Personal fund of V. M. Bekhterev. Archive of PFA RAS, f. 842, 9 units hr., 1900-1914.
Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev is a famous and outstanding Russian scientist - academician, doctor, neuropathologist, psychiatrist, physiologist and morphologist. His study of brain morphology made a significant contribution to science. He is the founder of not only experimental psychology, but also reflexology.
Bekhterev explored nuclei and pathways in the brain itself; created the doctrine of the anatomy of the brain and the pathways of the spinal cord; discovered centers of movement in the cerebral cortex. As a neuropathologist, he had great fame. He owns the study and description of a number of pathological and physiological syndromes: fear of being late or blushing, an obsessive smile and jealousy, crying or prolonged laughter, fear of someone else's gaze, and many others. Bekhterev studied collective psychology, where the laws of action of the entire team are identified with the laws of physics. Suffice it to say that without the ideas or hypotheses of Bekhterev, there was practically no section in neuropathology. Even one of the diseases still bears his name.
The scientist was born in the village of Sorali in the Vyatka province (now it is the village of Bekhtereva in the Republic of Tatarstan) in the family of a petty employee. At first he lived in Yelabuga, but soon the family moved to Vyatka. After the death of his father, Vladimir went to study at the Vyatka gymnasium and, despite poor studies - there were triples in the graduation certificate and only two fours, he was fond of the natural sciences.
He did not want to stay in Vyatka, and at the age of 16 in 1873 he entered the Medical and Surgical Academy of St. Petersburg. As a student, he thought about obstetrics or eye diseases and certainly did not plan to study the brain, but nevertheless, interest in neuropathology and psychiatry took over. After completing three courses, he left for Bulgaria, where he participated in the hostilities of the Russian-Turkish war. Here he stayed only four months, because from an overnight stay on damp ground he fell ill with a fever and was forced to return to the Academy, where he became a completely different person - with a feeling of compassion that never left him.
After graduating from the St. Petersburg Academy in 1878, he remained at the Department of Psychiatry, where he studied mental and nervous diseases with Professor I. Merzheevsky. Three years later he defended his doctoral dissertation and received the degree of Privatdozent. In 1884, Bekhterev studied abroad with European psychologists in clinics in France, Germany, Austria, where he gained knowledge and experience.
While in France at the Salpêtrière hospital, which was then considered the school of European neuropathologists, Bekhterev became acquainted with the use of hypnosis on hysterical patients, then he was just entering medical practice. Like other scientists, Bekhterev proved the normality and therapeutic effect of hypnotic sleep, because hypnosis is "just a dream that is caused by suggestion."
Returning from abroad, Bekhterev gave lectures on the treatment of mental disorders with hypnosis. By the way, the publication of articles in journals, lectures, and most importantly - successfully cured patients made it possible for hypnosis to officially become a method of treating patients. The methodology developed by Bekhterev for conducting collective psychotherapy of alcoholics under hypnosis, with some adjustment, is still being carried out.
Soon Bekhterev and his wife moved to Kazan, where he headed the Department of Psychiatry at Kazan University. Here he took up the organization and construction of a nervous clinic, after some time he opened the world's first neurosurgical department, where doctors from all over Russia studied. At the Department of Mental Diseases in 1884 he became a professor at Kazan University. He founded the Society of Neurologists and Psychiatrists in Kazan, as well as the journal Neurological Vesnik, created the world's first psycho-neurological laboratory, which studied the structure of the brain and nervous tissue. This was a big breakthrough in science because there were very few Russian doctors in psychiatry, even medical records were kept at that time in German.
Bekhterev published more than fifty works in Kazan, including the main one: "The Pathways of the Brain and Spinal Cord", published in 1894. The scientific school created by Bekhterev was of world importance, and his lectures were so interesting that not only students listened to them. By the way, the future writer Maxim Gorky also listened to his lectures.
In his book, he outlines "a method of comparison and successive cuts in the same direction." Behind these words is a colossal work on the study of the thinnest section of a frozen brain, it is not for nothing that this book was translated into several languages, and all brain atlases are based on it, and the German professor Kopsch once said: “Only two know the structure of the brain perfectly:“ God and Bekhterev.
A stay in Kazan is the most fruitful period in the life of a great scientist. In 1890, his work began to appear: "The Fundamentals of the Doctrine of the Functions of the Brain" - a unique encyclopedia of knowledge about the brain. Bekhterev for the first time showed a scientific approach to the upbringing of young children and that the formation of personality begins already in the first months of a child's life. Bekhterev developed a method of collective hypnotherapy.
During the life of Bekhterev, more than six hundred scientific papers were published on issues of psychology, clinical neuropathology, psychiatry, physiology of the nervous system and morphology.
In the autumn of 1893, Professor Bekhterev moved to St. Petersburg and headed the Department of Mental and Nervous Diseases of the Military Medical Academy, where he organized a neurosurgical department. In 1902, he published the work Fundamentals of the Teaching of Brain Functions, in which he revealed the activity of the brain, discovering the nuclei and pathways in the brain, and in the cerebral cortex - the centers of movement, and also created a new doctrine - reflexology. Bechterew's disease is named after the scientist, and the well-known potion named after him was used for treatment as a sedative. To measure the sensitivity, he even created special instruments.
Vladimir Mikhailovich in 1908 created the Psychoneurological Institute in St. Petersburg, which now bears his name and is a genuine higher school of psychoneurology. During the war years, operations were carried out here and assistance was provided to the mentally ill. Vladimir Mikhailovich sympathized with the Bolsheviks and enthusiastically accepted the revolution of 1917. In 1918, at his request, an institute for the study of the brain and psyche was established, and he was its director until his death. Here he created a museum of the brain, and history ordered that the brain of Bekhterev himself turned out to be the first exhibit. In the same year he created a new science - reflexology.
The indefatigable Bekhterev even attracted his children to research activities, especially his favorite - the fifth daughter Maria. Already in 1920, Vladimir Mikhailovich became interested in animal training, together with the trainer Durov, the task was to mentally suggest to the dogs the actions planned in advance. Bekhterev and Pavlov- it was these two geniuses that laid the foundation for reflexology. They argued often, especially about the work of different parts of the brain, each had a "cool" character, but now in the science of the brain they stand side by side.
Vladimir Mikhailovich in 1927 was awarded the title of Honored Scientist of the RSFSR. At almost 70 years old, he married a second time to Yagoda's young niece.
Bekhterev developed the concept of "combination-motor reflex", introduced the concept of "nerve reflex". He created several dozen drugs. He also owns the description of a number of diseases and the development of various methods of their treatment.
Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev died on December 24, 1927 in Moscow unexpectedly and quickly, and was buried in Leningrad. The prehistory of the sudden death is as follows: Bekhterev, going to Moscow for the first All-Union Congress of Neurologists and Psychiatrists for a meeting on December 22, was several hours late. To the question of his colleagues, he answered: “I watched one dry-handed paranoiac.” It turned out that they were summoned to the Kremlin in connection with the development of handicap in Stalin, and he determined the diagnosis: “progressive paranoia”, so to speak, in passing. And although Bekhterev was an influential and authoritative scientist who, as a physician and psychologist, was used to telling the truth, he was still careless with Stalin's diagnosis. In the evening he went to the Maly Theatre, after the performance he was invited to the theater museum and treated to tea and sandwiches. After returning from the performance, I felt bad. In the evening, his health deteriorated sharply; in the last hours and until midnight, there were only two and even inexperienced doctors at the bedside of the dying man. According to the official version - gastrointestinal poisoning, and the version that he was poisoned by the NKVD, of course, has not been confirmed, but not refuted either.
It turned out to be strange that they did not do an autopsy, but decided to remove only the brain. Many medical experts are sure that the scientist was poisoned. There is a second hypothesis that his death was associated with the creation of an "ideological weapon" and when one of the program leaders fled abroad, taking secret papers, Bekhterev became under suspicion of the NKVD. The method was tested, it is only necessary to implement it, but Bekhterev was against it, and then it was removed.
A similar case is known in history with N. K. Krupskaya, when the day after her 70th birthday she died, poisoned by a cake sent personally by Stalin. He feared that "Lenin's widow" at the party congress would tell "the whole truth" about him. Isn't it true that the same "handwriting" as during the elimination of Bekhterev? Although, these are just assumptions and conjectures, and from what Vladimir Mikhailovich actually died - we, most likely, will never know ...
During his life he trained hundreds of students, including seventy professors. A street in Moscow and a city psychiatric hospital are named after Bekhterev. In addition, postage stamps issued at various times have immortalized his name. A historical monument is Bekhterev's estate in St. Petersburg and his house in Kirov.
Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev, an outstanding Russian psychiatrist, one of the founders of Russian experimental psychology, possessed outstanding abilities and exceptional diligence.
The future great doctor was born on January 20, 1857 in the family of a petty civil servant in the village of Sorali, Yelabuga district, Vyatka province (now the village of Bekhterevo, Republic of Tatarstan).
In 1856, his father, Mikhail Pavlovich, who rose to the modest rank of collegiate secretary, died of tuberculosis, leaving three sons orphans. He was not even 40 years old. The youngest, Volodya, was prepared for exams at the gymnasium by his elder brother Nikolai, with some help from his mother. He passed the exams successfully, and the commission decided to enroll him immediately in the second grade.
On August 16, 1867, he began his studies. Later, in his Autobiography, recalling that time, Bekhterev writes: “I believe that there was no well-known popular book on natural science that would not have been in my hands and would not have been more or less studied with the corresponding extracts. Needless to say, such books of that time as Pisarev, Portugalov, Dobrolyubov, Draper, Shelgunov and others were read many times with enthusiasm. The sensational theory of Darwin at that time was, by the way, the subject of the most careful study on my part.
The knowledge he received while studying at the gymnasium allowed Bekhterev to enter the famous Medical and Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg at the age of sixteen and a half, while only applicants who had reached the age of 17 were accepted there.
At the age of 21, having completed his studies, he remained at the academy for scientific improvement under the guidance of the largest Russian psychiatrist Ivan Pavlovich Merzheevsky (1838-1908). On April 4, 1881, Bekhterev successfully defended his doctoral dissertation in medicine on the topic “The experience of a clinical study of body temperature in certain forms of mental illness” and received the academic title of Privatdozent.
On June 1, 1884, at the age of 27, he, as a particularly talented scientist with many of his own research published in Russian and foreign languages, was sent abroad for two years. Bekhterev trains in the laboratories and clinics of such world-famous specialists as the Leipzig neurologist Paul Flexig (1847-1929), one of the founders of modern neuromorphology, the outstanding Parisian neuropathologist Charcot and Wilhelm Wundt, the founder of experimental psychology. Bekhterev left a good impression on them, striking them with the breadth of interests and depth of knowledge. It should be noted that thanks to a visit to the Charcot clinic, where work on the study of hypnosis was in full swing, Bekhterev learned to treat with the help of hypnosis and suggestion.
In the spring of 1885, Bekhterev went to Munich, where he got acquainted with the clinic and laboratories of the famous German psychoneurologist Bernard von Gudden, who tragically died a year later, on June 13, on Sunday, while rescuing the mentally ill King Ludwig II in Starnberg Lake.
The young scientist spent the summer months of 1885 in Vienna. There he was interested in the methods of work of the "old connoisseur of the brain" anatomist and psychiatrist Meinert. Upon his return to Russia in July 1885, the 28-year-old Bekhterev was appointed by order of the Minister of Education as a professor and head of the department of psychiatry at Kazan University.
After returning from a business trip, Bekhterev begins to give a course of lectures on the diagnosis of nervous diseases to fifth-year students of Kazan University. Since 1884, a professor at the Kazan University at the Department of Mental Diseases, Bekhterev provided the teaching of this subject with the establishment of a clinical department in the Kazan district hospital and a psychophysiological laboratory at the university; founded the Society of Neurologists and Psychiatrists, founded the journal "Neurological Bulletin" and published a number of his works, as well as those of his students in various departments of neuropathology and anatomy of the nervous system.
In 1883, Bekhterev was awarded the silver medal of the Society of Russian Doctors for his article "On forced and violent movements during the destruction of some parts of the central nervous system." In this article, Bekhterev drew attention to the fact that nervous diseases can often be accompanied by mental disorders, and with mental illness, signs of organic damage to the central nervous system are also possible. In the same year he was elected a member of the Italian Society of Psychiatrists.
His most famous article "Stiffness of the spine with its curvature as a special form of the disease" was published in the capital's magazine "Doctor" in 1892. Bekhterev described "stiffness of the spine with its curvature as a special form of the disease" (now better known as Bekhterev's disease, ankylosing spondylitis, rheumatoid spondylitis), that is, a systemic inflammatory disease of the connective tissue with damage to the articular-ligamentous apparatus of the spine, as well as peripheral joints, sacral - iliac joint, hip and shoulder joints and involvement of internal organs in the process.
Bekhterev also singled out such diseases as choreic epilepsy, syphilitic multiple sclerosis, acute cerebellar ataxia of alcoholics. These, as well as other neurological symptoms first identified by the scientist and a number of original clinical observations, are reflected in the two-volume book "Nervous Diseases in Individual Observations", published in Kazan. Since 1893, the Kazan Neurological Society began to regularly publish its own printed organ - the journal Neurological Bulletin, which was published until 1918 under the editorship of Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev.
In the spring of 1893, Bekhterev received an invitation from the head of the St. Petersburg Military Medical Academy to take the chair of mental and nervous diseases. Bekhterev arrived in St. Petersburg and began to create the first neurosurgical operating room in Russia. In the laboratories of the clinic, Bekhterev, together with his staff and students, continued numerous studies on the morphology and physiology of the nervous system. This allowed him to complete the materials on neuromorphology and begin work on the fundamental seven-volume work Fundamentals of the Teaching of Brain Functions.
In 1894, Bekhterev was appointed a member of the medical council of the Ministry of the Interior, and in 1895 he became a member of the Military Medical Scientific Council under the Minister of War and at the same time a member of the council of the mentally ill.
In November 1900, the two-volume "Conducting Pathways of the Spinal Cord and Brain" was nominated by the Russian Academy of Sciences for the Academician K.M. Baer. In 1902, Bekhterev published the book "Psyche and Life". By that time, Bekhterev had prepared for publication the first volume of Fundamentals of the Doctrine of the Functions of the Brain, which became his main work on neurophysiology. Here, general provisions on the activity of the brain were collected and systematized. So, Bekhterev presented the energy theory of inhibition, according to which the nerve energy in the brain rushes to the center that is in an active state.
According to Bekhterev, this energy, as it were, flows to him along the pathways connecting individual areas of the brain, primarily from nearby areas of the brain, in which, as Bekhterev believed, “a decrease in excitability, therefore, oppression” occurs. In general, Bekhterev's work on the study of brain morphology made an invaluable contribution to the development of Russian psychology. He, in particular, was interested in the course of individual bundles in the central nervous system, the composition of the white matter of the spinal cord and the course of fibers in the gray matter, and at the same time, on the basis of the experiments, he managed to find out the physiological significance of individual parts of the central nervous system (optic tubercles, vestibular branch auditory nerve, inferior and superior olives, quadrigemina).
Dealing directly with the functions of the brain, Bekhterev discovered the nuclei and pathways in the brain; created the doctrine of the pathways of the spinal cord and the functional anatomy of the brain; established the anatomical and physiological basis of balance and spatial orientation, discovered in the cerebral cortex centers of movement and secretion of internal organs, etc. After completing work on the seven volumes of Fundamentals of the Doctrine of the Functions of the Brain, Bekhterev's special attention began to be attracted to the problems of psychology.
Bekhterev spoke about the equal existence of two psychologies: he singled out subjective psychology, the main method of which should be introspection, and objective psychology. Bekhterev called himself a representative of objective psychology, but he considered it possible to study objectively only the externally observable, i.e. behavior (in the behaviorist sense), and the physiological activity of the nervous system. Based on the fact that mental activity arises as a result of the work of the brain, he considered it possible to rely mainly on the achievements of physiology, and above all on the doctrine of conditioned reflexes.
Thus, Bekhterev creates a whole doctrine, which he called reflexology, which actually continued the work of objective psychology of Bekhterev. In 1907-1910, Bekhterev published three volumes of the book "Objective Psychology". The scientist argued that all mental processes are accompanied by reflex motor and vegetative reactions that are available for observation and registration. To describe the complex forms of reflex activity, Bekhterev proposed the term "associative-motor reflex". He also described a number of physiological and pathological reflexes, symptoms and syndromes.
Physiological reflexes discovered by Bekhterev (shoulder-shoulder reflex, large spindle reflex, expiratory, etc.) make it possible to determine the state of the corresponding reflex arcs, and pathological reflexes (Mendel-Bechterev dorsal foot reflex, carpal-finger reflex, Bekhterev-Jacobson reflex) reflect the defeat of the pyramidal pathways . Ankylosing spondylitis symptoms are observed in various pathological conditions: dorsal tabes, sciatic neuralgia, massive cerebral strokes, angiotrophoneurosis, pathological processes in the membranes of the base of the brain, etc. To assess the symptoms, Bekhterev created special devices (algesimeter, which allows you to accurately measure pain sensitivity; baresthesiometer, which measures pressure sensitivity; myoesthesiometer - a device for measuring sensitivity, etc.).
Bekhterev also developed objective methods for studying the neuropsychic development of children, the relationship between nervous and mental illnesses, psychopathy and circular psychosis, the clinic and pathogenesis of hallucinations, described a number of forms of obsessive states, and various manifestations of mental automatism. For the treatment of neuropsychiatric diseases, he introduced combination-reflex therapy for neuroses and alcoholism, psychotherapy by the method of distraction, and collective psychotherapy. Ankylosing spondylitis was widely used as a sedative. In 1908, Bekhterev created the Psychoneurological Institute in St. Petersburg and became its director.
After the revolution in 1918, Bekhterev petitioned the Council of People's Commissars to organize an Institute for the Study of the Brain and Mental Activity. When the institute was created, Bekhterev took the position of its director and remained so until his death. The Institute for the Study of the Brain and Mental Activity was subsequently named the State Reflexology Institute for the Study of the Brain. V.M. Bekhterev.
In 1921 Academician V.M. Bekhterev, together with the famous animal trainer V.L. Durov carried out experiments of mental suggestion to trained dogs of pre-conceived actions. Similar experiments were carried out in the practical laboratory of zoopsychology, which was headed by V.L. Durov with the participation of one of the pioneers of mental suggestion in the USSR, engineer B.B. Kazinsky. By the beginning of 1921, in the laboratory of V.L. Durov, over 20 months of research, 1278 experiments of mental suggestion (to dogs) were carried out, including 696 successful and 582 unsuccessful. Experiments with dogs showed that mental suggestion does not have to be carried out by a trainer, it could be an experienced inducer. It was only necessary that he knew and applied the method of transmission established by the trainer. Suggestion was carried out both in direct visual contact with the animal, and at a distance, when the dogs did not see or hear the trainer, and he did not hear them.
It should be emphasized that the experiments were carried out with dogs that had certain changes in the psyche that arose after special training. An internationally recognized scientist, academician Bekhterev was distinguished by the versatility of his scientific interests. In all encyclopedias, three specialties are named after his name at once: neurology, psychology and psychiatry, and in each of them he left a deep mark. Peru Bekhterev owns many works on hypnosis, to name some of them: "On the objective signs of suggestions experienced in hypnosis" (1905); "On the question of the medical significance of hypnosis" (1893); "The Medical Significance of Hypnosis" (1900); "On Hypnotism" (1911), etc.
At the end of 1927, V.M. Bekhterev was supposed to participate in the work of the I All-Union Congress of Neurologists and Psychiatrists and the I All-Union Congress, dedicated to the problem of raising and educating children. In Moscow, he settled in the house of an old acquaintance, university professor S.I. Blagovolina.
On December 22, at the opening congress of neuropathologists and psychiatrists V.M. Bekhterev was elected honorary chairman. On the same day, his last public speech took place: he made a report on the collective treatment by suggestion under hypnosis of patients with drug addiction and, in particular, alcoholism, as well as various forms of neuroses; he spoke about the method of collective hypnopsychotherapy and its advantages over the individual method of treatment, which is associated with the peculiar mutual induction of patients that occurs in this case.
The next day, he presided over a meeting of the congress devoted to the problem of epilepsy. The meeting took place in the building of the Institute of Psychoneuroprophylaxis of the People's Commissariat of Health on Kudrinskaya Street. After the meeting V.M. Bekhterev expressed a desire to get acquainted with some of the institute's laboratories. Accompanied by the director and prominent Moscow psychiatrists, he visited the laboratory of morphology of the central nervous system and the department of labor pathophysiology, which was headed by a former student of V.M. Bekhterev - Ilyin.
In the evening of the same day, he was at a performance at the Bolshoi Theater, and at 23:40 on December 24, 1927, the largest neuromorphologist, neuropathologist and psychiatrist V.M. Bekhterev died. V.M. Bekhterev left his own school and hundreds of students, including 70 professors. However, none of his students could replace the late scientist-encyclopedist, endowed with brilliant organizational skills. The psycho-neurological academy he founded soon disintegrated.
- Moscow, the USSR
Kazan University
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In 1879, Bekhterev was accepted as a full member of the St. Petersburg Society of Psychiatrists. And in 1884 he was sent abroad, where he studied with Dubois-Reymond (Berlin), Wundt (Leipzig), Meinert (Vienna), Charcot (Paris) and others. He organized in St. Petersburg the Society of Psychoneurologists and the Society for Normal and Experimental Psychology and the Scientific Organization of Labor. He edited the journals "Review of Psychiatry, Neurology and Experimental Psychology", "Study and Education of Personality", "Issues of the Study of Labor" and others. In November 1900, the two-volume Bekhterev's "Pathways of the spinal cord and brain" was nominated by the Russian Academy of Sciences for the Academician K. M. Baer Prize. In the same year, Vladimir Mikhailovich was elected chairman of the Russian Society of Normal and Pathological Psychology. After the completion of work on the seven volumes of "Fundamentals of the Doctrine of the Functions of the Brain", Bekhterev's special attention as a scientist began to be attracted to the problems of psychology. Based on the fact that mental activity arises as a result of the work of the brain, he considered it possible to rely mainly on the achievements of physiology, and, above all, on the doctrine of combinational (conditioned) reflexes. In 1907-1910, Bekhterev published three volumes of the book "Objective Psychology". The scientist argued that all mental processes are accompanied by reflex motor and vegetative reactions that are available for observation and registration. He was a member of the editorial committee of the multi-volume "Traite international de psychologie pathologique" ("International Treatise on Pathological Psychology") (Paris, 1908-1910), for which he wrote several chapters. In 1908, the one founded by Bekhterev began work in St. Petersburg. Pedagogical, legal and medical faculties were opened in it. In 1916, these faculties were transformed into the private Petrograd University at the Psychoneurological Institute. Bekhterev himself took an active part in the work of the institute and the university, headed the economic committee of the latter. In May 1918, Bekhterev petitioned the Council of People's Commissars to organize an Institute for the Study of the Brain and Mental Activity. Soon the Institute was opened, and Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev was its director until his death. In 1927 he was awarded the title of Honored Scientist of the RSFSR. At the age of about 70, he married a second marriage to Yagoda's niece Berta Yakovlevna Gurzhi (née Are, Latvia, Valka County, 1887-1937). The granddaughter of Vladimir Mikhailovich, Natalya Petrovna, in her memoirs indicates that she was her "governess, who spoke Russian poorly" [ ] . After his death, V. M. Bekhterev left his own school and hundreds of students, including 70 professors. Versions of the causes of deathV. M. Bekhterev died a few hours after he, according to the official version, was poisoned by food - canned food or sandwiches. This poisoning occurred after a consultation he gave to I. V. Stalin. The theory with Lenin's diagnosis does not seem very likely, since the latter died almost four years earlier than Bekhterev. According to the great-grandson of V. M. Bekhterev, S. V. Medvedev, director:
According to another version, V. M. Bekhterev was poisoned the next day after during a medical examination of Stalin about dry hand (Stalin carefully concealed his partial dry hand, tried not to undress in public and was rarely shown even to doctors, because at that time dry hand considered a hereditary disease of prodigal people) along the way made him a psychiatric diagnosis of "severe paranoia". On this subject there is a story by L. Feuchtwanger “The Story of the Physiologist Dr. B.” (1934, published in the USSR in 1968; Stalin is not mentioned there, instead there is a character called the Dictator). Family
AddressesIn Petersburg:
In these works, Bekhterev was engaged in the study and study of the course of individual bundles in the central nervous system, the composition of the white matter of the spinal cord and the course of fibers in the gray matter, and at the same time, on the basis of the experiments performed, elucidating the physiological significance of individual parts of the central nervous system (optic tubercles, vestibular branches of the auditory nerve, inferior and superior olives, quadrigemina, etc.). Bekhterev also managed to obtain some new data on the localization of various centers in the cerebral cortex (for example, on the localization of skin - tactile and pain - sensations and muscle consciousness on the surface of the cerebral hemispheres, Vrach, 1883) and also on the physiology of the motor centers of the cerebral cortex ("Doctor", 1886). Many works of Bekhterev are devoted to the description of little-studied pathological processes of the nervous system and individual cases of nervous diseases. Compositions
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